Marrying the Rancher by Roz Denny Fox

Author:Roz Denny Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Western Romance
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Wyatt loaded his backpack with equipment and left the next morning moments before light illuminated the peaks. He drove to a spot where the road ended at a campground. In full but cloudy daylight, he set out on foot to find his wolf pack.

His mind was only partly on his mission because his thoughts kept drifting to yesterday at Tandy’s. A simple meal of soup and sandwiches shouldn’t have felt special, but it had. Perhaps it was the family atmosphere. They’d all talked and joked while eating. Scotty filled Manny in on the trip.

After supper Wyatt had helped Tandy clear the table and load the dishwasher while Manny, like a grandfather, retired to the living room and taught Scotty to play checkers. Looking back, it was as if Tandy and he could’ve been married. In fact, he’d stolen a kiss and she hadn’t pushed him away.

His own family had been so fractured. His grandmother had provided a roof over his head and food in his belly, but she’d never welcomed his friends. So it’d be a stretch to call her old house home. He wanted more when he settled down.

As he wove through underbrush looking for wolf tracks, it struck him that he’d always wanted more.

What if that more was Tandy and Scotty and he left it all behind for his job? If he tossed in Manny as a grandpa, the scale tilted ever more one-sided.

On the other side of the scale were wolf projects in numerous states. The fact Scotty begged to go with him in search of the pack seemed to him what most boys would do. It’s what he did as a boy. But he could tell Scotty’s insistence frightened Tandy. Maybe he needed to taper off their tracking practices.

He ran across the first wolf signs and stuffed all prior thoughts into a corner. The pack had moved lower than was safe for them or for ranchers’ cattle. Quite likely the late snowfall, especially with thunder and lightning, had driven one or both families down the mountain in search of food and shelter.

He came to a clearing where wolves had fed on an elderly elk. Softening his steps, he readied his dart gun seconds before his homing device went crazy. Noting tracks curving around a boulder, he followed them and sighted a collared male, a female and three pups. He tranquilized the adults, but took care to remain vigilant for the second pair. He thought four adults had fed at the downed elk.

The pups were too cute. All appeared healthy. He took photos, replaced radio telemetry collars on the adults and installed them on the youngsters after vaccinations. Retreating deeper into the woods, he climbed a tree to wait. From this perch he could be sure the tranquilized animals woke up.

All at once his phone rang. The tune blared loudly in the silent forest and scared a couple of woodpeckers from an adjacent tree. It wasn’t easy finding the phone in his pack while perched in a tree fork.

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